


Divergence

by xenascully



Series: Castiel's Army [6]
Category: NCIS, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Season/Series 07, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-19 21:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1485436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenascully/pseuds/xenascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's Army installment.<br/>Leviathans never got out of Cas. He jumped into Purgatory to make up for his mistakes. But before he did, the monsters inside of him started a search for something big. Though Sam and Dean are out of the hunting business, they have no choice but to get back in the game...even with Hells bells ringing loud in Sam's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Same song, different melody

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda canon but at the same time, completely different universe. I've basically been rewriting the seasons as they come. This is my alternate version of season 7 (and on) as far as Supernatural goes. I'm sticking with NCIS canon for the most part. Ziva will be there until the timeline catches up.
> 
> I did a lot of taking of lines (in the second half) from Hello, Cruel World. I needed to use the general events and change them up a bit to better suit what's happening in this universe. My initial intentions were to start this story out during the Born-Again Identity (where Sam ends up in the psych ward after being hit by a car while trying to run from Hallucifer) but I felt like because of where I took the series on an AU spin, I need to do a lot up catching up, and that's okay. I hope you enjoy! Might be a week between updates. Bear with me :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor do I profit from it. I do not have rights to any of the following material that are transcript lines from the show (taken from Supernaturalwiki dot com—thanks, guys!) Also, I do not own NCIS obviously. Though if I was writing for either show, you can bet your arse I'd still be writing fanfiction on the side.

It's been six months since Castiel jumped into Purgatory.

Just weeks after that jump, right after Dean's hope of Cas being able to help Sam was lost, the medication that Ducky had tried to help Sam with had slowly become less and less effective. After a couple of months, when it had gotten bad enough that the meds weren't helping at all, Dean had decided it would be best to take Sam out of DC and bring him to Bobby's. As much as he hated leaving their new family, Sam was becoming dangerous. His nightmares had shifted into daytime hallucinations, and he had nearly stabbed McGee in the basement thinking he was some kind of monster about to attack him. Because of this, Sam was more than willing to leave when Dean brought it up.

Bobby's house had a back-up plan; a room where they could put Sam if he had a really bad day. Neither Dean nor Bobby hoped it would come to that, but it was an option. Plus Bobby was glad to get Dean back in Sioux Falls. If the boys weren't hunting, he could at least use some help directing the other hunters. Especially lately, since there seemed to be something happening across the board that Bobby couldn't quite figure out.

It was around the third week of them being at Bobby's that he had figured it out...

3 months earlier...

"Dean, I think we've found something," Bobby told the younger man as he entered the kitchen where Dean was making lunch.

"Yeah?" Dean asked without looking away from his task.

"The weird crap that's been goin' on lately," he replied. "All the reports about demonic and angelic activity across the globe." Dean made a thoughtful yet uninterested noise from where he was standing. "Damnit, kid, I know you're worried about your brother, but this could be pretty damn huge."

"It's always something, Bobby," Dean said as he continued to work. "There's always something going on. But right now my job is getting Sammy better. Or hell, getting him to eat would be a win in my book right now," he said as he picked up the plates and turned with them.

"If I eat, will you hear him out?" Sam asked as he walked into the kitchen.

Dean's face showed his surprise at Sam having come downstairs on his own. "Sam?"

"I'm okay," he replied, glancing back and forth between Dean and Bobby's awed expressions. He brushed off the awkward feeling and made his way to the table. "So what's going on, Bobby?" he asked.

Bobby looked over at Dean for a moment, and both older men seemed to get back with the program. Sam brought the plates to the table, setting one in front of Sam before he sat down across from him with his own. "Looks like," Bobby began, "While Cas was still topside, he started a search for something."

"I thought we kinda had that figured already, since it started right before he left," Dean said.

"Yeah well a friend of mine, Frank Devereaux, he contacted me a few weeks back. At first I thought he was just bein' his nutty self, findin' things that were probably a whole lotta nothin'. Told me there were some strange dig site plans goin' on; lotta different areas. No real explanation for any of 'em. Turns out this might be exactly what Cas had set up. Since they started breakin' ground, there're angels all over the radar."

"How does Frank know all this stuff?" Sam asked.

"All the man does is hole up in his trailer and track anything weird he can detect on his computers," Bobby replied.

"Weird?" Dean asked, a brow raised in curiosity. "Like monsters weird?"

"Like everything from monsters to Area 51 weird," Bobby elaborated. "Frank's seven layers of crazy, but he ends up bein' right at least half the time."

"So he thinks demons and angels are all over the place because these dig sites opened up. That's all he's got?" Dean questioned. "We have no idea what they're after. We'd be sending hunters in there blind."

"Yeah, no kidding," Bobby said as he walked over to the counter to fix himself a plate of the lunch Dean had prepared. "But I'm thinkin' Frank might be right on this one. Feels like somethin' big is about to go down, so I'm sending hunters out to each area, just to sit tight and wait in case somethin' happens. Better to have someone nearby, regardless what it ends up bein'."

"Does Frank have eyes on all the sites?" Sam asked.

"The ones here in the US, yeah,"Bobby told him. "There're some overseas he can't get much more than a satellite feed off of, though, so he's tryin' to get me to track down hunters out there."

"Can he send us the information?" Sam asked.

"Sam," Dean warned.

"I can at least look into the sites," Sam told him. "Maybe there's a connection. What harm could that do?" he looked pleadingly at his brother.

Dean thought it over for a moment. "Yeah. Okay, fine. But would you eat your damn lunch already? Pushing it around with a fork hasn't worked since you were seven."

Sam met his brother's eyes before looking down at his plate. He knew his brother had made him a nice salad. He knew that's what was on the plate. But what he saw wasn't that at all. Sam saw slimy, slithering snails trailing blood in their tracks, winding around one another, and he grimaced, swallowing against the nausea.

He knew that Dean wasn't gonna let him skip out on eating. He did that too much, and Dean was wearing the 'worry hat' with a giant neon sign these days. So Sam looked away from the plate and started stabbing at the contents, closing his eyes and repeating the mantra, 'It's not real. It's not real,' in his head over and over as he started to choke it down.

"I'll see if Frank can send whatever he's got to your computer," Bobby told Sam.

Sam conjured up whatever will he had in him and smiled in Bobby's direction. "Thanks, Bobby."

Later in the evening, Sam brought his laptop down to the kitchen and started going over the files Frank had sent to him. It ended him up fetching several books from Bobby's library so he could go over some history on the locations of the dig sites.

When he brought a few back to the kitchen with him and set them on the table, the table rocked to one side, and Sam realized that one of the legs was loose. He got down on a knee to look underneath.

"Dude, what're you doing?" Dean asked as he came in for a beer.

"Table's wobbly," Sam said, glancing up at him before looking back under the table.

"'Cause the sugar packet slipped out," Dean told him. Sam was confused for a moment, before he realized that there was indeed a packet of sugar sitting under the table where it had once been stuck under the loose leg.

"Yeah well, I'm gonna go get a screwdriver and tighten this up instead."

"Suit yourself," Dean shrugged as he grabbed a beer from the fridge. "It's just gonna come loose again. Always does."

"Not if I glue the screw in," he retorted as he stood up. "Does Bobby have wood glue?"

"How would I know?" Dean raised a brow. "It's probably with the rest of his tools if he's got it. Or...you could just put the sugar packet back like a normal person."

"Like a lazy person, you mean?" Sam smirked.

"Just because you're OCD doesn't mean the rest of us are lazy," Dean defended. "We just accept the fact that not everything is perfect."

"I...I know not everything is perfect," Sam replied, eyes twitching a bit before he continued. "I know there's stuff we can't fix. But I can fix this, so...I'm gonna try."

Dean was taken aback by the comment, too shocked to respond before Sam started heading out of the room. "Wait...Geez, man, that's not... I mean I didn't..."

"Dude, chill out," Sam said with a small, breathy laugh. "I know." And then Dean watched his brother head for the basement door.

"He knows that's not what you meant," Bobby sounded from the study, and Dean turned to see him. Dean let out a breath and headed over to the older man, taking a long drink from his beer.

"Just feels like nothing I say is ever right," he told him. "If I worry, I'm being an annoying mother-hen. If I act like I'm not worried, I say the wrong crap and end up feeling like a giant douche bag."

"Well as far as I know, there ain't no manual on how to properly handle the fragile mind of a soul that's been donkey-punched by Lucifer for a hundred years," Bobby told him. "Pretty sure you're doin' best as anyone could, Dean. You stepped outta the life to try and keep 'im safe, and you stayed out to try an' put 'im back together again. Not much more you can do than what you are already."

"Doesn't feel like I'm doing anything," Dean said, shaking his head.

"Sometimes all you can do is not give up," Bobby retorted. "And if there's anything I know, it's that—literally—come hell or high water, you ain't never givin' up on Sam."

Dean looked down at his beer for a moment, nodding in acknowledgment of Bobby's words. They were true, of course, but was that really going to be enough?

.

Sam dug through one of the several boxes on the workbench in the basement. Finding the screwdriver had been easy, but the glue was another story. If Bobby even had any it was likely rarely used, and therefore probably deep in the bottom of one of the dusty old boxes of normal-people stuff, aka not supernatural-fighting materials. He dug carefully through a second box, just a bunch of random stuff, replacement table-saw and puzzle blades, hoses and spare car parts thrown together. Sam made a mental note to organize it for Bobby later.

"Oh Sam, Sam, Sam," a horrifyingly familiar voice sounded, and Sam spun around to see Lucifer sitting on the stairs.

"Y-you're not real," Sam could only whisper through the sting of fear.

"Well there's certainly something not real, but it's not me," he countered. "I'm just waiting to see how much longer it's gonna take for you to figure that out."

"Figure what..."

"That this is all in your head," he told him. "You're still in the cage with me, Sammy. You're mine."

"No," Sam replied, shaking his head. "You're lying. I'm not there anymore. They got me out."

"Really, Sam?" Lucifer smiled smugly. "It's kind of adorable that you'd think that was possible." The muscles in Sam's face twitched with nervous anxiety as Lucifer stood. "Did you forget all of the things you had to do to let me out in the first place? You honestly think they found another special kid with an addiction to demon-whore blood to break enough seals and open the door again?"

Sam flinched, unable to debunk the devil's words. Lucifer started walking toward him, and Sam jumped back, knocking one of the boxes to the floor, its contents spilling out at his feet.

"Aww Sammy, what's the matter? Aren't you ready to wake up and be my bitch again?" he asked.

"Go away," Sam grunted, out of breath as he pressed his body back against the workbench. "You're not here. You're not real."

"You're wrong, Sam," he replied, his hand shooting out to grip around Sam's neck. "I'm here. I've always been here, and I always will be. Don't ever forget that, Sam." Then he let go, and Sam dropped to the floor. "Sam..."

"Sam!" Dean's voice sounded in the distance, followed by footsteps hurrying down the stairs. He looked up, seeing that Lucifer was gone now. Dean hurried toward him with a worried expression on his face. "Sammy, what happened?" he asked as he crouched down. "Jesus, Sam, your hand..."

Sam looked down at where Dean was looking, the scattered items from the fallen box surrounding him, and of course his hand had landed on one of the replacement saw blades and was currently bleeding all over the floor.

Dean was wrapping a handkerchief around the wound before Sam could say anything about it.

"What the hell happened, Sam?" Dean asked, but he wasn't angry. His voice was careful and quiet and it almost freaked Sam out a little, except that he realized what he must look like, and he could feel himself shaking, his heart pounding in his ribcage still.

"I...I dunno," Sam replied, not wanting to admit to Dean that he was seeing things again. "I just...the box fell and I...I don't..."

"Okay come on," Dean shook it off, knowing Sam was hiding something, but not wanting to get into it right then. "You're bleeding all over the place. Let's get you upstairs so I can patch you up, okay?" Sam wordlessly nodded, taking hold of his brother as he helped him to stand. Dean's presence was a comfort to Sam, the grip of his hand on Sam's arm making his fear that Lucifer was telling the truth slowly dissipate.

Dean was no fool. He could feel Sam shaking. He could feel his pulse hard and fast where he held the cloth on Sam's wound. Undoubtedly, Sam had had another daymare or...hallucination or whatever they wanted to call this. It killed him a little inside to know it, knowing some of what had happened to his brother in the pit; witnessing some of it himself. It was bad enough Sam had suffered what he had, but to be reliving it a little each day was like a sucker-punch to the face over and over again.

After sewing up the wound and getting a decent amount of whiskey into Sam, Dean led a wobbling, drunken little brother back upstairs to bed, covering him up when he passed out right as his head hit the pillow. For whatever reason, he suddenly thought of Tony and was reminded of how he'd lost touch with them before everything—namely Sam—went to Hell. He felt the urge to call him, and glancing down at his watch he surmised that it wasn't too late in the night to do so.

He glanced back at Sam for a moment before heading back downstairs and out onto the porch. He plopped down on the steps and pulled out his phone. Dean scrolled through his contacts to find Mustang66. He smiled at the memory and hit the dial button. After a few rings, the other line picked up.

"Jesus please don't tell me someone's dead," Tony's voice sounded on the other line.

"What, I can't call just to say hey?" Dean replied, though the sinking feeling in his gut, the memory of the phone call he'd made from the road that couple of years ago, nauseated him.

"Oh good," Tony sighed, and Dean could hear the relief in his voice. "Hang on a minute. I'm supposed to be filling out some paperwork, but..." Dean heard him move on the other line and start talking to someone else. "Boss, it's Dean. Mind if I take this?"

"Something happen?" Dean heard Gibbs say, and he couldn't help the stinging in his eyes at hearing their voices, the lump growing in his throat and reminding him how much he missed them all.

"Not sure," Tony replied. "All I know is no one died."

There was a momentary silence, and Dean could picture Gibbs' face and whatever he might be conveying to his agent without words. "Go on," he heard Gibbs reply finally.

"Thanks, boss," Tony replied, and he heard him move again, to where he wasn't sure, but when he spoke again, there was an echo to his voice, and he pictured him in the stairwell. "So what's goin' on?"

"Nothin' you need to hide to talk about," Dean replied.

"Yeah well, I don't take personal calls in the bullpen if I can help it. Eavesdropping ninjas and elf-lords."

Dean let out a small laugh. "Sorry. Guess I didn't think you'd be at work this late. Shoulda known better, though."

"My non-working hours are a rarity. Not a big deal. At least we weren't out in the field." There was another long pause. "Dean...what's wrong, man?"

"Why's something gotta be wrong?" Dean defended. "Just trying to keep in touch, ya know?"

"I'm a detective, remember? I can hear it in your voice, man. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you called and I'm happy to hear from you, but if you need to talk about something other than happy thoughts, I'm happy to listen." Another long pause, Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's Sam, isn't it," Tony surmised. "No change?"

"Uh," Dean's voice shook a little, unintentionally. "Well no. Not...not really, I guess," he said. "I mean, he hasn't tried to stab anybody or anything, but there's no one but me and Bobby here, so... But yeah, I guess I thought he might be getting a little better. Wasn't any hallucinations until tonight. Not that I know about anyway..."

"I take it it was bad?" Tony surmised, probably clearly from the sound of Dean's tone.

"He didn't tell me what he saw," Dean replied. "And he tried to tell me he just fell; that he didn't know what happened. But when I found him he was on the floor, saw blade cut open his hand and he was bleeding everywhere. Looked as freaked as I've ever seen him."

"So he lied to you. I'm guessing it's because he doesn't want you to be worried about him."

"Think I don't know that?" Dean replied.

"Yeah, no. I know you do," Tony told him. "I mean...it's probably more like he doesn't want you to worry more than you already are. It's not like you can make any of it go away."

"And honestly, that's what kills me more than any of it," Dean confessed. "I mean...we finally get him outta the cage and...part of him is like he's still there, ya know? Like he's gotta suffer the rest of his life. Sam doesn't deserve this. Nobody does. And with Cas gone...I'm out of options. I don't know what to do, man."

Tony was silent on the other line for a while. "Nothing you can do that you aren't already," he finally said.

"You sound like Bobby."

"Well, idjit, I guess if there's two of us saying it, it must be true."

"You're an ass," Dean said with a small laugh.

"So I've been told," he said, and Dean could hear the smile in the words.

"Must be true then," Dean said with a smirk.

"I own it. Works for me," he replied. There was another moment of silence. "Hey, you want me to come out there? I mean...I'm sure I could convince Gibbs to let me have a couple days. Not like I ask much."

"Nah, man, it's...it's okay. Really, I mean...not that I wouldn't love to see you or anything, I just...it might not be such a good idea."

"Will it ever be, though? I mean, are you just gonna stay there forever, hide from everyone and not let us ever see either of you again?"

"I'm not hiding, Tony," Dean defended. "I'm trying to keep you safe."

"Yeah I know that, man. I just...I feel like it wouldn't be such a big deal to come visit. It's not like I can't defend myself, and most of the time he's fine-"

"It only takes one minute," Dean reminded him. "Seriously, man, my brother is not someone you wanna be in the path of when he's convinced you're the enemy. Tim knows that first hand. He coulda been killed."

"But he wasn't. Sam got himself under control."

"Luck. That's what that was. And it's why we hauled ass outta there. You know that."

"I do. I get it, trust me. I know you're already on edge as it is. But listen, man, if you need me to come—I mean for anything, you just tell me. Just tell me, okay? I mean any time. Stop worrying about what happens to me. I'm a grown man. I can handle myself. What the hell good am I to you if I can't be there when you need me?"

"You're plenty good to me," Dean told him. "I can call you up whenever and you actually listen to whatever bullshit I gotta say."

Tony laughed for a moment. "It's never bullshit, though. In fact, the day you call and it's just random bullshit, is the day I'll know that something crazy good happened."

"Shit, I'm sorry... Man, what I wouldn't give to have one of those days. Instead, I'm like a crappy Evanescence song."

"Okay, first off, you don't sound drunk to me right now. Secondly, do not mock Evanescence."

"The hell, man, you and Sam braidin' each others hair when I'm not lookin'?"

"Anything that's not classic rock is girly to you, I swear."

"No avoiding the truth," Dean shrugged, though he was smiling a little now.

*~.~*

Two weeks later, Dean had no choice but to back Bobby up on a case right there in town. Possible demonic activity at a nearby hospital, of all places. Dean wouldn't let Bobby go on his own, even if he was reluctant to leave Sam by himself.

It's the first Sam had been alone in a long time. The first he'd been by himself since he woke up after the wall fell. So when Lucifer started talking to him again, the anxiety was all the worse.

He just sat there across from him at the table in Bobby's kitchen, reading a magazine. Sam tried to concentrate on cleaning his guns, tried to ignore the devil the best he could.

"You know, I really think Price William has found the right girl. What do you think?" Lucifer asked.

Sam continued to ignore him, continued cleaning the gun in front of him. Then his phone rang and he was more than happy to answer. "Dean," he greeted.

"Hey," Dean replied on the other line. "So we're pretty sure there's something out here. Staking out the place to figure out what's what. You doin' okay?"

"Yeah...yeah, I'm okay."

"Okay. Good. Well...hang in there, alright?"

Sam ended the call and glanced at Lucifer.

"Just okay?" Lucifer asked. "I'm having a great day!" He stood and made his way to the fireplace, grabbing a poker and eying it before swinging it life a golf club.

"Okay," Sam said, "If this is some kinda dream and you've got power over it, why don't you just end it?"

"End it? This? You not knowing what's real, the paint slowly peeling off your walls, come on, man, this is the sweet spot! Why would I end it? Not like we got HBO in the Pit. All I got is you, floating over the coals with half a hope that you're gonna figure it all out. There's only one way to figure it out, Sam. It's up to you. It ends when you can't take it anymore." Sam shook his head in denial. Lucifer looked down at the guns on the table. "I think that's maybe why we're cleaning our guns," he told him.

"Shut up," Sam told him, angry now. "I said shut up!"

Lucifer just smiled and took a seat back at the table.

Then a car pulled up outside and Sam headed over to the window to see who it was. The Impala was parked out front and Dean was heading inside.

"Dean," Sam said as his brother walked through the door. "I thought you were staking out the hospital?"

"Yeah, Bobby's got that for now," he replied. "But I've gotta check out a second location and I need back up. So...that means you."

"Uh...are you sure about that?" Sam asked with raised brows.

"I know, you're bonkers," Dean said, and it felt kind of like a punch in the gut even thought Sam knew it was true. "But luckily I just need you to keep the engine running and wait by the back door. Just don't...uh. Don't let Satan change my presets. Let's go."

Sam swallowed. He wasn't sure what good he could do for his brother, but he sure as hell would try. So he grabbed his jacket and his gun and followed out after Dean. At least Lucifer seemed to be gone for the moment; that much he was glad for.

As he drove, Dean started talking again. "How you doing, Sam?" he asked. "In the head region. Devil still riding shotgun?"

"Not right now, but...yeah," he replied. And damned if he didn't feel sick to his stomach at the blunt conversation.

"Maybe we oughta get you...I dunno..."

"What? Some professional help?" Sam offered with a raised brow. "What are they gonna do but stuff me full of pills? We'll find some other option."

"Okay yeah," Dean shrugged. "But what are your other options? You remember when Martin took his nosedive and started shooting at nothing? I mean...his sweater unraveled fast."

"I'm not Martin," Sam retorted. It hurt to think Dean had come to this point of giving up.

"No, but you are crazy," he said. Another punch to the gut. "That don't wash off. You get that, right? You are never going to be okay, Sam." Sam looked at him for a moment, then. The words felt like a hand reaching into his chest and pulling out what remained of his heart. It took every ounce of strength he had not to give in to the stinging in his eyes.

*~.~*

Back at Bobby's, Dean entered to check in on Sam. The stakeout had been slow-moving, and Bobby assured him that he'd call if something happened so he could shoot right back over.

"Sam?" he called out when he didn't see him in the kitchen. There was no reply. "Sammy?" he called out again as he walked out into the study, then picked up his pace and headed upstairs. "Sam?" But he wasn't there either. "Oh crap..." Sam had taken off. Who knows what for. Good thing for Dean he'd turned on the GPS on Sam's phone after the last incident...

*~.~*

As the Impala pulled up in front of the building, not-Dean looked out the window toward it. "Oh damnit...there's five of 'em. All right. Come on," he told Sam.

"Are you sure?" Sam asked, knowing that this could end badly.

"Yeah, and listen...when we get in there, you gotta keep it together," he told him as they walked toward the building.

"Yeah, yeah...I-I will," Sam told him, doing his best to get himself to focus. "I-"

"'cause if you're seein' Lucifer, then you can be seein' all kinds of crap, okay? You just don't know."

"How is this helping?" Sam asked, more frustrated than sad now.

"I'm just saying, Sam. You're outta control."

"I'm dealing with it the best I can," Sam defended.

"Dealing?" not-Dean laughed. "Sorry, that's just funny. I mean, how can you deal? You think this is an office building, right?" he asked, then held the door open for Sam to enter. Sam didn't think about it for the moment, but entered the building before not-Dean. "Sorry," not-Dean said. "Wrong."

It wasn't an office building at all. It was more like an empty warehouse. "Where the hell are we?" Sam asked as he looked around.

"Oh! You think I'm Dean! Right," he replied with a smile, and Sam watched in horror as not-Dean morphed into Lucifer. "You poor, clueless sonofabitch."

"Stay the hell away from me," Sam said, then turned and starting to walk away.

"Your world is whatever I want it to be, understand?" Lucifer said.

Sam turned and fired his gun in Lucifer's direction. "Leave me alone!" But Lucifer wasn't there anymore.

"Now we're getting there," Lucifer said, suddenly behind Sam. Sam spun around and backed away. "Pinnochio's seeing his strings."

"Shut up," Sam replied shakily.

"It's the big crescendo."

"I said shut up!" Sam yelled again, firing his gun once more, but Lucifer appeared behind him again.

"Want to point that gun at someone useful?" he asked. "Try your face." The devil walked closer to him. "Want to know the truth? Want to skip to the last page of the book? You know where to aim," he told him, sticking a finger under Sam's jaw and mocking a gunshot sound.

*~.~*

When Dean entered the warehouse, he'd heard Sam shouting inside. Part of him was surprised to find him standing there alone. "Sam? Sam!" he shouted when he saw the gun in his hand. "Sam, what're you doing?" he asked. And Sam flinched and aimed his gun on Dean. "Whoa whoa!" Dean put his hands up in a surrendering gesture.

"I was with you, Dean!" Sam yelled, his voice cracking with the level of overwhelming confusion.

"Okay," Dean replied, confused as well now. "Well here I am..."

"No...no I don't...I..." Sam looked back at Lucifer, then to Dean again. "I can't know that for sure, you understand me?"

"Okay," Dean replied, trying to summon up the right thing to say. "Now, we're gonna have to start small."

"I don't remember driving here," Sam said.

"Well that's because I drove, you thought," Lucifer told him, then looked to Dean. "Sam is very suggestible."

Sam turned and shot at Lucifer.

"Whoa! Whoa, Sam!" Dean yelled. "This discussion does not require a weapons discharge!" Sam realized that he was breathing hard now, freaking out and probably scaring the hell out of Dean, if it really was Dean. He couldn't be sure. He couldn't be sure of anything. But he lowered the gun anyway. "Look at me," Dean said. "Come on." Sam looked at him. "You don't know what's real? Look, man, I've been to Hell, okay, I know a thing or two about torture. Enough to know that it feels different...than the pain of this...this regular, stupid, crappy this," he told him.

"No," Sam shook his head. "No. How can you know that for sure?" he asked.

"Let me see your hand," he replied. Sam started to lift one. "No, no. The gimp hand," Dean told him. "Let me see it."

"Smell you, Florence Nightingale," Lucifer said beside him, and Sam looked over at him.

But Dean grabbed Sam's bandaged hand and shouts, "Hey!" to get his attention. Sam looked back to Dean. "This is real," he told him. "Not a year ago. Not in Hell. Now. I sewed this up, remember? Look!" Dean squeezed a thumb into the bandaged wound, using his other hand to grab for the barrel of the gun in Sam's other hand.

Lucifer appeared beside Dean then, the image of him flickering. "We've done a lot more with pain," he said.

Sam sucked in a breath, wincing. Dean pulled the gun away from him before he spoke again.

"This is different, right?" Dean asked him. "Than the crap that's tearing at your walnut? I'm different. Right?"

Sam pulled his hand away. "Yeah...I think so," he replied.

"You sure about that, bunk buddy?" Lucifer asked beside Dean, and Dean watched as Sam looked off beside him.

"Sam?" Dean tried to get his attention back. "Sam." He watched Sam as he pressed his own thumb into the wound, so hard it caused blood to begin pooling out of the bandage. The image of Lucifer began to flicker again.

"Doesn't mean anything," Lucifer said.

"Hey," Dean pulled Sam's attention again. "Hey, I'm you're flesh-and-blood brother, okay? I'm the only one who can legitimately kick your ass in real time. You got away. We got you out, Sammy."

"Sammy, Sammy," Lucifer taunted. Sam pushed harder into the wound. "Sammy, I'm the only one who can-" he flickered then, and then disappeared.

"Believe in that," Dean continued. "Believe in me, okay? You gotta believe me. You gotta make it stone number one and build on it. You understand?"

Sam looked at him in a mixture of desperation and relief, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay," he replied.

Then Dean's phone rang. For a few long seconds, he ignored it.

"Dean...it could be Bobby," Sam told him, and Dean snapped out of the daze to answer it.

"Bobby?" Dean said into the phone.

"So I met up with Jody Mills," Bobby told him. Dean could tell he was driving at the moment. "Turns out she happened to be a patient at Sioux Falls General Hospital."

"What? She okay?" Dean asked, brows furrowing. Then he looked to Sam. "Jody's in the hospital," he told him.

"What?"

"She had an appendectomy," Bobby explained. "She's okay, but she called me when she noticed her doctor was a black-eyed sonofabitch. So I've got her, and I bagged Dr. Gaines. He's trussed up in my trunk and I'm headin' back to my place as we speak. Figured we could do a little hardcore interrogating; figure out what the hell they're all up to."

"Friggin' weird that they're posing as hospital staff. So yeah, we'll meet you back at the house," Dean told him, then ended the call.

"What's going on?" Sam asked as they started out of the warehouse.

"Jody's okay. They bagged a demon, and Bobby's meeting us back at the house." The two got into the Impala, Sam's gaze lingering on the van that he'd apparently driven out there unknowingly. This whole thing made him feel like he should lock himself away somewhere. The things he could've done tonight... "Look," Dean said as he started up the car, "When we get back to Bobby's-"

"I know," Sam turned to him. "It's okay, Dean. I'm good. No white rabbits," he said with a small laugh. "I'm not seeing anything."

"Okay," Dean replied, slightly unconvinced. "Baby steps." He gave him a small smile, and Sam gratefully returned it.

The drive back was longer than the drive out. Maybe that's because Dean had floored it all the way there when Sam had gone MIA. By the time Dean pulled onto the last road that'd lead to Bobby's, he could see the smoke.

"Oh no," Dean said, almost in a whisper...

*~.~*

Dean worked his way back out of the remains of the scorched house. Sam met him halfway.

"Any sign of him?" Sam asked worriedly.

Dean held up a charred book before tossing it behind him. "That place was torched. Went up like freakin' flash paper. Whoever did this knew what they were doing."

"You think Bobby was back there?" Sam asked.

"I don't know," Dean shook his head, then signaled for Sam to search the lot. He listened to Sam calling out for Bobby until it grew distant. Then he dialed Bobby's number.

"This is Bobby Singer's direct hotline. You should not have this number," the voice came over the line, then a beep.

"You cannot be in that crater back there," Dean said into his phone. "I can't... If you're gone, I swear...I am gonna strap my Beautiful Mind brother into the car and I'm gonna drive us off the pier. You asked me how I was doing? Well, not good!" his voice cracked. "Now you said you'd be here. Where are you?" He ended the call and shoved the phone back in his pocket, and joined in the search for Bobby again.

And then Sam is yelling for Dean to watch out.

Dean turned a second too late, and he saw the demon before he flicked a hand and sent Dean flying across the yard. He fell wrong into the side of an old, beat up Lincoln, and he felt the bone in his arm snap before the pain signal reached his brain. He shouted out when it hit, though.

"Dean!" Sam cries out worriedly, and Dean turned his head in time to see the demon heading toward his brother with a big metal pipe. Sam is defenseless; Dean took his gun.

"Sam!" Dean shouted, watching as Sam tried desperately to find something to fight with. Dean pushed up off of the ground ignoring the horrid pain in his arm as he tore off toward his brother. He pulled Ruby's knife from his jacket with his good arm. He watched the demon swing the pipe and hit Sam square in the head. Sam dropped like dead weight, and Dean plunged the knife into the demon's back and didn't even wait for it to finish flashing out before he dropped next to his brother.

"Sammy?" he said as he checked for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief when he found it strong. But Sam was unconscious and they needed to get outta there because obviously the fire had been started by demons, and there were likely more on the way. "C'mon, man, you gotta wake up," he told him, grabbing onto the younger man's shirt to shake him. "I can't drive like this, and we need to get the hell outta here." But there was no response. "Sam?" There were headlights turning into the lot. "Sammy! Sammy, come on!" he panicked. "Shit shit shit..." he pushed up off of the ground with a pained grunt, readying himself with the knife, putting himself between Sam and the oncoming threat.

"Dean!" Bobby's voice sounded, and Dean was momentarily confused until the older man got out of the parked vehicle, headlights still pointed on the boys. "Come on, kid! Could be more on the way," he said as he walked the short distance to them.

"Bobby?" Dean looked at him for a long, confused moment. "Christo."

"I ain't no demon, ya idjit," he replied. "Now help me get your brother into the car."

"I...I can't," Dean replied. "Arm's broken. Can't do a damn thing right now."

"Balls... Then get in the back and I'll get Sam; you can at least lead him in."

Dean crawled into the back seat, the pain in his arm starting to make him nauseated, but the urgent need to get Sam out of harm's way overpowering it. Bobby struggled but succeeded in picking up Sam and leading him head-first into the other side of the car. Dean reach out with his good arm, gripping the shoulder of Sam's jacket and leading him to lay half on Dean's lap. The motion jostled his bad arm, and bile rose in his throat.

"Bobby, I think we need a damn hospital," Dean said, swallowing against the pain, a cold sweat breaking out everywhere the air could touch exposes skin.

"Yeah well it ain't gonna be General," Bobby replied as he shut the door and got back into the driver's seat. "Place is swarmin' for whatever reason. But I'll get us somewhere. You concentrate on tryin' to wake that Sasquatch brother of yours up, 'cause ain't no way I can lift his ass again tonight."

Dean looked down at his still-unconscious brother's face with worry. He could feel the blood soaking through the leg of his jeans where Sam's head laid. "Sam..."

It wasn't for another ten minutes that Sam began to stir. Dean was surprised by it, but put a hand on his brother's chest and tried to get him to look at him. "Hey, Sammy. Sam, look at me. Hey, you stay with me, you hear?"

Sam opened his eyes and looked across the seat. Lucifer...

"Hey, so maybe I'm not real," Lucifer told him. "Nobody's perfect," he smirked. "But I'm not going anywhere, Sam." He smiled evilly.

Dean wasn't sure what Sam was looking at, but none of that mattered when Sam's eyes rolled back in his head and he began seizing. "Sam? Sammy!" Dean was officially freaking out now. "Bobby, get us somewhere fast!" he shouted. "Jesus... Sam!"

TBC...


	2. How I Met Garth

A week later, they were holed up in Rufus's old cabin in Whitefish, Montana. It was the only safe thing to do for the time being, with the boys both needing to heal up. Dean was in a cast for at least a few more weeks. Sam had been on bed rest and pain killers for that first couple of weeks. After the hit in the head and that frightening seizure, the hospital had done MRIs to find the origin of the intracranial pressure. They'd remedied the bleeding, reduced the swelling, and Bobby and Dean smuggled him out of the hospital the first chance they got.

Now, four weeks later still, Sam was as good as expected, and Dean was complaining about how itchy the cast was. "One more friggin' week, an' this stupid thing can come off," he said, scratching his skin by shoving a long-handled gun cleaning brush under the front end of the cast.

"Almost over," Bobby said as he walked into the cabin, having heard him before opening the door. "Got somethin' that oughta cheer ya up," he said, then tossed him a set of keys.

Dean's face lit up as he caught them. "My baby!" he smiled. "Can't wait till I can drive 'er."

"So how is it out there?" Sam asked from where he sat at the small breakfast table.

"Since we've been gone, seems to be quiet," Bobby told him. "At least as far as Sioux Falls goes. Got a couple hunters keepin' an eye out, and as far as they can tell, everything's quiet."

"That's weird," Dean said. "So...what? You think they found what they were lookin' for?"

"I don't rightly know," Bobby sighed as he took a seat. "Those dig sites are still active. No idea why they'd have been away from those, unless...unless they were specifically there for us..."

"For us?" Dean asked, then thought about it for a minute. "Well, they did zone in on us, specifically. I guess maybe having insiders posted in the hospital was a back-up for if they didn't get the job done at your place." Bobby looked at him for a moment, an eye twitching with the notion. "What do you think, Sam?" he asked.

But Sam didn't hear him; not with the voice flooding his head right then. It was Lucifer. "You never left, Sam," he told him. "You're still in the Cage with me."

"Sammy?" Dean asked again, turning his head to look over at him. "Sammy?" he said again, watching his brother look somewhere far off. "Sam," he said louder. "Hey! Ground control! Sam!"

"Yeah. What?" Sam shook himself and looked to his brother. "I'm- I'm right here."

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he insisted. The room was silent for a long, uncomfortable moment.

"Good," Bobby said, breaking the silence. "Well anyway, if you're right," he said to Dean, "It's a damn good thing I made sure I wasn't followed. I think us disappearing off the radar might've given them the impression that they were successful. Now back to what the sons of bitches are lookin' for... Every last bit of info I had burned down, so..."

"What about this place?" Dean asked. "Rufus leave anything? You check the basement?"

"C-rations and dust," Bobby replied, quirking his mouth for a moment. "I don't think he'd been here in years. So I gotta go round up my old library."

"I thought you said most of those books were one of a kind," Sam said.

"Yeah. That's why I stashed copies all over the place."

"Okay," Dean nodded. "Good." Then he looked to Sam. "Hey uh...two-arms. We're fresh outta grub. Wanna make a run?"

Sam looked surprised for a moment. "Sure," he replied. "Yeah."

He tossed Sam the keys. "Be careful with her. And uh...Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Pie."

"Obviously." Sam shook his head, then headed out.

Dean waited for the door to close before he turned back to Bobby. "So?"

"So what?" Bobby questioned, narrowing his eyes.

"Before you bail again," he began. "'Girl, Interrupted' over there; any thoughts?"

"Looks to me like he's doin' better," he replied.

"Better?" Dean said incredulously. "What to you mean 'better'? You just saw him!"

"Saw him check out once," he retorted. "That's progress."

"Look," Bobby said with a sigh. "Seems to me Sam's head ain't no different than your arm. People heal on a curve."

"No differe- Bobby, I get this thing off in five days," he gestured to his cast. "I'm golden. Sam's not a curve. He's a frickin' time bomb!"

"Look," Bobby stopped him. "You're so worried about the kid, let me take him with me to pick up my first stash of books."

"No way," Dean shook his head.

"No way?" Bobby raised his brows. "You really think he's so bad off that he can't take a trip to a secret book hiding spot with me? That I can't manage 'im?"

"That's...that's not what I mean," Dean shook his head. "But if someone's got a target out on us, you think it's a good idea to be roamin' around out there without knowin' what to look for?"

"We're not wandering around aimlessly, Dean, and we can't hide in a cabin for the rest of time. And the only way we're gonna get any closer to figurin' out what to look for is to start getting the info back." Bobby watched as Dean seemed to think it through, even if it was begrudgingly. "Besides, if you're right and we do have a target on our asses, I'd sure as hell like to have some back up. Ya know...someone with two functional arms."

"Damnit," Dean grunted. "Damnit..."

"We'll check in every two hours," Bobby continued to try his case. "Even got another hunter in the area if anything feels off. It'll be fine, kid. What's the worst that could happen?"

24 hours later, Dean was pacing the cabin floor. It was half an hour past check-in time. He'd tried to call both Bobby and Sam a handful of times already. The GPS on Sam's phone hadn't moved location in two hours. Dean was officially freaking out.

"Screw this," he said, then picked up the electric handsaw and began slicing into his cast...

*~.~*

Sam and Bobby were tied and gagged in the abandoned parking garage; each to a separate support beam. The place was swarming with demon-possessed men. One of them had spotted the hunters when they'd stopped for gas. They'd been on their way back from retrieving the first set of books. Once the demons got wind of their presence, they had ambushed them and dragged them back to this garage.

Bobby had questioned the purpose of it. They had assumed the demons wanted them dead, so why just kidnap them?

"You think we don't know that as soon as big brother Dean Winchester figures out something's wrong, he won't come galloping in to try and rescue you?" one of the demons told them, a grim smile on his face.

So that was their game. Wait for them all to be in one place, then take them all out.

True to form, Dean showed up just a matter of hours later. Sam and Bobby didn't know it until he was being escorted in by two demons, each holding one of his arms as he struggled to get away.

When Sam saw him, all hope drained from his veins. "Sammy," Dean's eyes widened when he saw him. "Bobby..."

They both started struggling against their bindings again.

"It's no use," the head demon told them. "But hey, at least you all get to die together." They shoved Dean down to the floor between his brother and Bobby, his hands tied behind him.

"Why?" Dean asked, his teeth gritted together as he spoke. "I get it. We're hunters. But why go out of your way, huh? Why have you all been to hellbent on taking us out in particular?"

"Because you may potentially slow us down," the leader said with a shrug.

"Slow you down?" Dean questioned. Sam looked to him for a moment, wondering why he was bothering with the small talk. But then he realized that he was stalling them. Something was happening outside. They could hear it. Apparently the demons couldn't, even though they were all inside the garage now.

"You three have been snooping into Roman's business for too long," the leader told him.

"Uh...Roman? What?" Dean asked, legitimately confused."Pretty sure we were meddling in Crowley's business," he retorted.

"Crowley?" the demon laughed. "Crowley's got nothing to do with this."

"Pretty sure you're wrong about that," Dean replied. "Or you're wrong about us snooping."

The demon narrowed his eyes, but before he could retort, there was a squeal of a loud speaker that suddenly filled the room.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica." The voice was familiar only to Bobby. The demons were trying to get out of the garage now, their thoughts of killing the hunters now furthest from their minds.

The exorcism continued, and Dean looked to Sam who was quickly working his hands out of their binding.

"Hurry, Sam," he told him, feeling helpless as he couldn't do what he needed to in order to free himself. His arm ached with the mistreatment the demons had shown it earlier. The Latin continued around them, the demons now smoking out and their hosts crumbling to the floor around them

Sam finally freed himself and went right to Dean, seeing his discomfort, and began untying the knots.

"What the hell were you thinking, Dean," Sam scolded halfheartedly, "Taking your cast off this soon?"

"I was thinking you were in trouble, and it seems I was right," he retorted, hissing once his arms were free.

"Yeah well good job rescuing us," Sam rolled his eyes.

"Shuddup."

"Anyone care to rescue me over here?" Bobby asked around his gag, with a raised brow.

"Sorry," Sam said before making his way to the older man. "Who the hell was that doing the exorcism?" he asked no one in particular.

"That'd be me," a voice sounded from the entrance, and they turned their heads to see him. He was tall and thin as a rail, goofy looking.

"Boys," Bobby said once his gag was off, "Meet Garth Fitzgerald."

"The fourth," Garth added as he strolled over.

"Garth, Sam and Dean Winchester," he introduced. Now that they were all free, they stood. Sam shook Garth's hand, and Dean just gave him a nod as he held onto his sore arm.

"Thanks for saving our hides, man," Sam told him.

"No problem," he said with a smile. "Bobby said you'd be in town, so I kept an eye out. Once I figured out what they were planning, I started ninja-salting the perimeter. I waited for them all to be inside to close it up."

"And the speaker system?" Dean questioned.

Garth pulled out a megaphone, held it up in front of his mouth and cut it on. "Bullhorn," he said into it, causing the others to wince and cover their ears. Garth laughed, seeming truly happy with himself. Sam and Dean shared a glance.

"All right," Dean said, then cleared his throat. "Well thanks again. And uh...we owe you one."

"Hey, man, it's the job, right?" he said, still smiling. "You ever need anything, just holler. Bobby's got my number."

"Yeah," Bobby nodded. "Well, right now I think I need to head to Frank's. It's probably already out on the demonic phone-tree that we've been taken care of, so we're probably good for the time being. Boys, head back to the cabin and grab our stuff. I'll text you the coords to Frank's place. It's out in the Blue Ridge Mountains. GPS won't work out there, so you best get a map once you hit Virginia."

"What, you're goin' alone?" Dean questioned.

Bobby gave him a look that reminded him that neither Dean nor Sam could make the trip themselves without the other. "How's your arm, genius?"

"Fine," Dean grumbled. "You friggin' check in, Bobby, you hear me?"

"Yeah yeah. You too, idjits."

TBC...


	3. Seems it was your Destiny

"You want some painkillers?" Sam asked for probably the eighth time since they started the drive.

"For the hundredth time, it doesn't hurt anymore, Sam," Dean replied. "Stupid demon just jerked it too hard. It was sore, but it's fine now."

"You should let me wrap it up or something."

"I swear to god..."

"They set a specific amount of time for a cast to be on for a reason, Dean," Sam argued.

"Yeah well, I consider the last week to be for precautionary reasons," Dean replied.

"You mean so it won't get accidentally jarred or re-injured?" Sam countered, brows raised.

"Will it shut you up if I let you wrap it?" Dean asked, looking over at him in annoyance.

"Maybe," Sam replied.

"Fine. Bobby's checkin' in to a motel at the Minnesota border," he told him. "Let's get at least that far before we call it a night. You can do it when we're there. Then we need some sleep 'cause it's another 21 hours to those coords Bobby gave us."

"We'd have been there by now if you'd let us fly every now and then," Sam commented. Dean just glared at him for a long moment.

"You got this next couple hours, or you want me to take over?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I've got it," Sam replied. "Get some sleep. You can take first shift in the morning."

Dean settled down in the seat, situating himself in a more comfortable position. "Hey, you think Garth got that idea from what we did in that Sheriff's office in Monument, Colorado?"

*~.~*

"I'm about to cross over into a dead-zone for reception," Bobby told Dean over the phone. "How far out are you two?"

"Couple hours, maybe," Dean replied. "Frank's got some kinda setup you can call from once you get there, right?"

"Yeah. By the time I get there, though, you'll be in the dead-zone too. Just get your asses there in once piece. If there's no sign of ya a few hours from now, I'll take the same road back out to look for ya."

"Why're you so worried?" Dean asked with a raised brow. "What is it, Deliverance country out there?"

"Shaddup ya idjit. I'm allowed to worry."

"Okay, mother," Dean smirked.

"You're the one who wanted to do check-ins."

"Well excuse me for taking precautions," he replied without any heat. "See you in a couple hours, Bobby," he told him, then ended the call.

"Hey, you know Frank's got, like, a camper, right?" Sam asked beside him.

"Yeah. And?"

"And...maybe we should get a room. I don't think there's gonna be space for us there."

"Yeah, let's just get there first. We'll figure out the rest later."

Sam glanced over at his brother, away from the road for a moment. He seemed more tense since he got off the phone. The road trip had taken, in total, 36 hours. They've done trips like this before; it's not like they weren't used to it. Hell, Dean usually enjoyed the trips. But he seemed uncomfortable right now, and though the both of them were more than ready to call it a night, Sam couldn't help but to be a little concerned.

"You okay, man?" Sam asked.

"Dude, didn't I just-"

"No, I mean...not your arm," Sam clarified. "I mean you seem...I dunno."

"Yeah well, I dunno either, Sam," Dean replied. "I just don't like not bein' in contact."

"It's just for a few hours," Sam tried to reassure him.

"I know." Dean tried to make himself relax, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was...off.

*~.~*

Sam had cut a half hour off their trip for Dean's sake. The back roads, though, had become confusing at one point, so they'd turned around twice looking for a way to get to the specific coordinates they'd been given.

"Hey wait," Dean said, leaning forward in his seat. "There's Bobby's car. Gotta be right up there somewhere," he said as he pointed out his window.

Sam turned the wheel and brought them up closer to the dark, creepy forest area, the soft yellow light from the camper's windows now seen in the distance. The closer they got, the worse the feeling Dean had in his gut got. It was when the car turned its headlights toward the camper, that it revealed the true horror neither of them had expected.

"No..." Dean's mind didn't quite make the connection yet. Bobby was on the ground in front of the structure. He wasn't moving. Dean was scrambling out of the car before Sam could bring it to a full stop. "Bobby!" he called out.

Sam put the car in park, leaving it on as he got out and went after his brother...

*~.~*

Tony pushed through the door of his apartment and threw his backpack on the floor before plopping onto his couch with a sigh. It'd been a long day at work. A long week, really. He was highly looking forward to the day off tomorrow. He was on call, of course, as well as the rest of his team, but...

And of course his phone would ring right then.

He looked at the caller ID. It read "caller unknown".

"I swear if this is a telemarketer..." he said before he answered. "Hello?"

"Tony?"

Tony narrowed his eyes. He knew that voice. "Sam?" he asked.

"I think...I think we need your help," he told him. Tony could hear the pain in the younger man's voice and it put him on edge.

He sat forward in his seat. "What's wrong? What happened and where are you?"

*~.~*

Bobby's neck had been broken. Hell, damn near twisted all the way around. He had Frank's satellite phone in his hand, a shotgun on the ground beside him. Dean had stormed into the camper in search of Frank; in search of answers. Frank was dead, too. There was sulfur on the counter.

When Dean came out of the camper and back to where Bobby was lying, his hands went into his own hair, gripping it as he searched the dark land around them. He said nothing. But Sam could see the despair written clearly on his face, his wet eyes shining in the glare of the headlights.

Dean didn't hear Sam pick up the satellite phone and make the call to Tony. They needed help, though, and Sam was barely holding on as it was. Now Dean looked close to completely breaking. Sam wasn't sure what to do.

Dean could feel his heart tearing in two. Bobby had been holding him together through everything. Since Sam started falling apart, Bobby was the one thing that kept Dean from losing his own mind. And now he was gone; torn away from him in the blink of an eye. He wasn't sure if he could do this.

He turned to look at Sam. Sam was looking wide-eyed at Bobby, and Dean noticed that Sam was pressing his thumb into the healed wound on his palm. He suddenly had the realization that Sam thought this wasn't real. Or he didn't want it to be. He was trying desperately to make it go away with that consistent push of his thumb.

Dean took a breath, pushing his own sorrow aside for a moment. His brother needed him.

Sam looked up as Dean stepped forward. He could see the concern in his older brother's eyes, and he felt hit suddenly, like a rush of heaviness that forced him to sit down on the grass under him. "This...this is real, isn't it," he said.

Dean sank down beside him and put his good arm around Sam's shoulders. "Yeah," he replied.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, and it came out in a rush of breath followed by tears he thought he could keep a handle on before that moment. "I'm so sorry, Dean. This is my fault."

"What?" Dean shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about, Sam? How the hell could this be your fault?"

"Because I'm..." Sam hesitated. "I'm messed up. If I wasn't messed up, you could've gone with Bobby, and this wouldn't have happened..."

"No," Dean told him. "No way. That's not true, Sam."

"Yeah it is."

"You see how far away Bobby parked?" Dean motioned to the older man's car. "Bobby saw something was up. He went to check it out. Chances are, Frank was already dead. Bobby got here too soon after."

"But he had Frank's phone, and Bobby was...was killed outside..."

"Yeah. Means they weren't inside anymore. He probably tried to call for an ambulance maybe. Or maybe another hunter in the area who woulda been in range. They jumped him out here."

"If that was true, why aren't they still here now?" Sam asked.

"They think they crossed out the entire to-do list, Sammy," Dean replied grimly. "No reason to stick around."

They were quiet for a little while, Sam's head resting on Dean's shoulder as they sat there and looked at their fallen friend.

"I'm still sorry," Sam said.

An hour later, they were standing in front of a burning pyre, watching the burning body of their surrogate father. Dean let himself feel the pain again for the time being, now that Sam seemed to be a little less guilt-ridden. Sam waited a while before telling his brother about the phone call.

"Tony's coming," he told him.

It seemed to take a moment for the words to process in Dean's mind. He looked over at Sam. "What?"

"I..." and suddenly Sam was unsure if that had been the right thing to do in the first place; if Dean would take it as some kinda of insult, that Sam didn't think he could handle it. "I thought maybe...maybe we could use some help," Sam told him, head bowed with something akin to shame. "It's not that I don't think we can manage on our own, but...I just felt like...maybe we could...maybe use a friend right now..."

Dean looked at him for a bit longer, noting that he was still pressing his palm, maybe absentmindedly at this point. Sam was right, of course. Dean wouldn't be much good to him right now, and he couldn't expect Sam to be able to handle things on his own. Maybe he was getting better. Or whatever... But he needed someone, and Dean wasn't sure he could do a sufficient job right now. He wasn't sure he wanted to, and maybe that's what scared him the most.

"Okay," he replied finally. "Yeah." He looked back to the fire. Sam looked over and Dean, both surprised and grateful...

*~.~*

By the time Tony got there, the sun was starting to come up and Dean was passed out in the back seat. Tony could see the exhaustion on Sam's face and in his stature as they greeted each other.

"Thanks for coming," Sam told him quietly. "Everything's...taken care of. I wanted to let Dean sleep a bit..."

"Why don't you follow me back to the rental place in town," Tony told him. "I'll drop off my car and drive us back in yours. You look like you could use some sleep. You been up all night?"

"Had to keep watch...in case."

Dean stayed asleep for the exchange. Tony had been driving them toward DC for thirty minutes before Dean's phone beeped and woke him up. He groaned groggily, twisting around and searching for the offending object and looking confused.

"The hell are we?" he asked.

"Interstate," Sam replied, turning a bit in his seat to look at him. "Tony's driving," he told him. "Thought I might catch an hour or so."

"Hey, Tony," Dean said, still half-asleep. "Thanks for coming."

"Any time. You know that," Tony replied.

Sam watched as Dean found his phone and looked at the screen. "Voice mail," he announced quietly, then dialed his inbox. Sam watched the flinch when the voice on the other end started. Dean stayed very still after maneuvering to sit up as he listened. A couple of minutes later, all the color left his face and the phone slipped from his hand. "Pull over," he ordered.

"What?" Sam questioned.

"Pull over now!"

"Tony-"

"Yeah okay," Tony whipped the car off onto the shoulder, slamming on the breaks as Dean fumbled for the handle to his door and just about fell out.

"Dean!" Sam tore out of the car after him, reaching Dean just as he began to wretch up the meager contents of his stomach over the side-rail...

TBC...


	4. Disappearing Sam

Sam's hand on the back of Dean's neck pulled Dean from his head space for a moment. "I'm okay," he told him, but Sam handed him a bottle of water anyway. He looked to Tony who's standing, leaning back against the car and just waiting, not sure what to do. Dean swished his mouth out with the water before spitting it over the rail, and went back to leaning on the metal. "Just gimme a minute," he told him.

"What was it?" Sam asked. "What was the voice mail?"

"Just...go listen to it. First part's probably important." He didn't look over as he spoke.

Sam left him and went back to the car, reaching in the open back door to grab the discarded phone, and he hit the redial button to the inbox.

"You have one message," the generic voice sounded. "To listen, press one." Sam pressed one.

"Dean," it was Bobby's voice on the other line. "I know you ain't gonna get this yet, but hell if I won't at least try. Frank is dead. I'm guessin' he was part of that hit-list that's out on us all. I reckon whoever did this might still be close by, so I'm grabbin' what I can, then high-tailin' it the hell outta here. In case I don't make it, here's what I know. Remember when that demon at the garage said somethin' about Roman? Well, turns out it's an actual person. Dick Roman. Owns Roman Enterprises. Obviously he's possessed, but he hasn't always been that way. Just a convenient meat suit for goin' after whatever they're goin' after.

"It's a multimillion dollar corporation focusing around construction, mining and demolition, and its got its paws in all kinds of companies across the globe. There's your 'how'. Whoever's possessing Roman is the head honcho of all these massively organized teams of demons all tryin' to achieve the same goal.

"Now we might not have a damn clue what it is they're lookin' for, but whatever it is, it's huge, and they're makin' damn sure we don't keep getting in their way. I hate to say it, boys, but...until we've got something concrete, we need to back off. At least until we get somethin' useful to fight back with. Gotta lay low until... Oh hell!" Sam heard the shotgun go off once, twice...and then the obvious sound of crunching bones, followed by a thump. He fought off the urge to throw up.

When he turned away from the car to look from his brother, he found him giving Tony a hug. Dean wasn't a hugger, really, except with a select few people. Most of those people were dead now. Sam supposed that it was why he was hugging Tony so tightly; treasuring the friends he had left. And really, their friends at NCIS were the only ones remaining...

It made him consider why they'd left there in the first place, and suddenly he was filled with self-doubt. Dean needed them. Sam knew that. And though he knew he was a bit better than he was before Dean helped ground him back in the warehouse, he couldn't be a hundred percent about whether it would get bad again. He'd been hoping that the blow to the head he'd gotten had somehow reset him a little. Regardless, he would do everything in his power to stay as well as he could, or get himself away before he could ruin things for Dean again.

Three hours later, Sam was crashed out on Tony's couch, and Dean was sitting on the floor in front of it, halfway through a bottle of his own whiskey. Tony had made a phone call earlier, but was now sitting on a chair across from the couch, just waiting for Dean to say something; anything. But it seemed Dean was in his own world, somewhere drowning in a sea of liquor and sorrow. Tony remembered the last time he'd seen him this way. It really wasn't a road he wanted to see the man on again.

"I'm sorry about Bobby, Dean," he said, breaking the silence. "I really am."

Dean looked up at him slowly, a sad smile making its way onto his face. His eyes wandered somewhere in the air between them. "Thing is," he started, his voice cracking partially from lack of use, and partially from the amount of alcohol in his system, "I almost lost both of them a couple days ago. I went to save them and almost ended up dead, too. But we got out alive. I thought we were okay, at least for a while, ya know?" Tony could see the tears forming in the younger man's eyes. "We were gonna be okay for a while. For all the demons knew, we were wiped off the list. Bobby would've been okay, but he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. And isn't that just some shit right there," he said with a humorless laugh, sniffing back the tears and not letting them fall.

"And we're not even in the game," he continued. "We're like...headquarters; no hands-on hunting. That's the kicker. We backed off as much as we could, and still we ended up on their top kill agenda. We don't even know what they're planning; no idea what they're so pissed about. And anything we might've found out just got destroyed in that camper. So it's all for nothing. I don't even know what we're s'posed to do now."

"Maybe you're not supposed to do anything," Tony replied.

Dean shook his head. "How am I supposed to not do anything, now? I feel like I should be out there lookin' for the sonofabitch responsible for this."

"Far as I understand when it comes to demons, it's not possible to know who did it unless they actually tell you to your face," Tony said. "So unless you plan and hunting them down one at a time... Which I guess isn't possible since they seem to be pretty organized right now..."

"Not helping."

"Sorry. I don't know what to do either," he admitted. "But when we do know what to do, you know I'll have your back."

"We can't pull you back into this," he replied.

"We've never really been out of it," Tony said with a small grin.

"I can't lose you guys, too," Dean said, meeting his eyes again.

"Nobody's losing anybody," Tony said with conviction. "We do what Bobby wanted; lay low. Wait till we find something solid to go on. We'll figure this out together, Dean."

"And what in the meantime, huh? What, we go stay in Gibbs' basement again?" he scoffed.

"You get a place somewhere in town," Tony told him. "Get your old job back at the garage."

Dean let out another laugh. "You make it sound so easy."

Tony shrugged. "It is. I mean...compared to the lives of the Winchesters? It's cake. You can do this, Dean. You've done it before," he reminded him. "But now you've got Sam. I know you just suffered something bad. You both have. But you've got each other, and that...that's something." Dean didn't respond to that. He seemed to be thinking that over. "You've got Sam, and you've got us, too. You know we'll be here for you both; anything you need..."

So that's what they did. Dean got his old job back. He even got Sam a job in bookkeeping for the shop. He was unsurprisingly great at it. Even when he seemed to be sleeping less and less as the days went on. And even so, Dean convinced their boss to let Sam do most of the work from home. The guy was pretty convinced that Sam was sick anyway. Like...Huntington's sick or something, and they had to go along with it because how do you explain to a normal person that it's hallucinations from a stint in the Pit with the devil?

The NCIS team had been discreetly keeping an eye on Roman Enterprises; making sure no one was aware of what they were doing, internally or otherwise. Abby and McGee were determined to find them something concrete, whatever that might end up being. Not that any of them were in a rush to get the Winchesters back out to hunting, but whatever was going on out there, Bobby had died for it. They couldn't let that go cold.

Sam had found an apartment for just under a grand a month in Alexandria. It was a studio apartment, and they figured they'd just deal with it, because adding a bedroom was another five hundred. Two would double their rent. They'd lived in motel rooms their whole lives, so this wouldn't be such a big change. The alias Abby had made Dean last year had good credit, so that was a plus. It took all their reserve funds to put the deposit and first month down, but in the end it was worth it to have their own place.

Dean loved that there was a pool and a gym for residents. Sam loved it too, because it was easier to hide the fact that he was seeing things when Dean was distracted. Of course, Dean was no fool. He knew what was going on. He hadn't realized, however, how little Sam was actually sleeping.

It's been six months since Castiel jumped into Purgatory...

...and it's been three days since Sam went missing...

"I've been everywhere in town!" Dean shouted, frustrated as he paced back and forth in Gibbs' living room. "Everywhere in Alexandria, Georgetown, downtown D.C. In every library, book store, cafe, bar, pool hall, museum... Every back alley, hospital... I don't know what to do anymore!"

"All right, just calm down," Tony told him.

"I can't!" he shouted back. "Sam's gone! He's just gone, and I can't find any evidence that says he left of his own accord. He ain't answering his phone. He hasn't used any of his cards. I can't find any of his aliases checked in any hotel. What if someone took him? Like that Roman guy or whatever? What if they found out where we are?" he asked, eyes red as he looked over at Tony.

"It's not them," Tony said, shaking his head. "We've been keeping tabs. There's been no movement anywhere in this area. Abby's looking into this, okay? If he went somewhere, we'll figure it out."

As if on cue, Tony's cell rang. It was Abby. Dean paced as he waited for him to finish the call. When he did, Dean looked to him.

"He stole a car," he told him, a disappointed look on his face.

"How do you know that?" Dean asked.

"Idiot got caught on a surveillance tape."

"God, he really is off his game," Dean sighed.

"Yeah well, lucky for him, the image is really shoddy. Abby was able to clean it up enough to tell who it was, only because we were looking for him in the first place. Now...thing is, the car was found. It was wiped down and left behind."

"Where?"

"Topeka."

"Kansas?" Dean's eyes widened. "That's like a forty minute drive from Lawrence. Why the hell would he go there?" His eyes searched the air in front of him as he thought.

"Maybe he wanted some time alone," Tony told him.

"He wouldn't just take off like that," Dean said, shaking his head. "He wanted some time, all he had to do was leave me a damn note."

"You've seen him, Dean. He's been a wreck. He barely sleeps."

"Exactly why he shouldn't have driven halfway across the damn country by himself!" Dean exclaimed. "He could've killed himself!"

"I'm sure he was careful. He had mind enough to clean up after himself and leave the car somewhere where it could be found and returned to its owner."

"I need to start lookin' for his aliases in that area," Dean said, then turned to head toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Tony asked.

"Back to my place. My laptop is there."

"Let me take you into the office," Tony offered. "Abby's got some mad skills. If he can be found, she'll be able to find him with your help."

*~.~*

Sam had tried everything to sleep. He'd drank so much liquor the night before, he should be dead from alcohol poisoning. Yet it didn't let him sleep. Lucifer was still there; still taunting him. He felt like he might actually go mad. And that's what had led him here, staring down at the syringe full of prepared heroin and...well god knows what else the guy had put in there. Sam didn't care. He needed to sleep. It'd been a week. Christ, no. Over a week. It'd been a week with not so much as five minutes of sleep before he left D.C. He wasn't sure how long he'd been in Bootbock.

Originally he came to find something. Or rather find someone in particular. He came to pray to Castiel; get him to come back from Purgatory with some proper begging. It hadn't worked. He was losing his mind, and he couldn't let Dean see how weak he'd become.

Drugs. It was his last resort. His last resort besides death, of course. But that's what Lucifer wanted. He couldn't do that. He couldn't do that to Dean...

He was desperate though. Nothing felt real. Nothing but Lucifer. And Sam couldn't live like this. He needed to sleep.

So he picked up the syringe fearfully, tapped the side of it to let out any air bubbles as he lightly pressed the plunger. Hesitantly it wavered over his vein, and then he gave in and stabbed it into his arm, injecting half its contents because he'd never done this before, and he knew he'd kill himself if he used the whole thing. He looked at the clock. 11:07pm. And then everything went dark...

A loud noise had his eyes shooting open. 11:22pm, the clock read. His eyes shot to the door when he heard the sound again. A gun shot. There was a hole in the door now, and Sam sprung out away from the headboard and up onto his feet.

"Oh Sam...really? Drugs?" Lucifer... "You know nothing's gonna make me go away, right? Now your just bringin' fun to the party is all."

No. He wasn't real. Sam knew he wasn't real, but he couldn't make him go away. That much was right.

He looked back at the door. The hole was gone. Just another hallucination. He sank back down on the bed, sitting on its edge, and put his head in his hands. He couldn't stop the tears that forced their way out. This wasn't fair. None of it.

"Aww, poor baby," Lucifer goaded. "I hate to see you so sad, Sam. Plus it's reeeeally killing my buzz, man."

Part of him knew he deserved this. He'd jump-started the apocalypse. He'd said yes to Lucifer. You don't just go to the Pit for a hundred Hell-years and come out normal.

But hell, he'd gotten fifteen minutes of sleep. That's fifteen times more than he'd gotten in over a week, and he'd take it. He'd take whatever he could get.

He looked back down at the remaining contents of the syringe...

*~.~*

"Sam Mills. That's him," Dean said as he looked at the big screen on Abby's laboratory wall. "That must be the ID he's carrying with him right now. He's not that far from Sioux Falls; maybe five or six hours drive."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Gibbs asked, standing beside him.

"Mills. It's uh...the last name of a friend. Haven't talked to her since right after Bobby..." Dean swallowed and looked away for a moment. "Anyway, she's a sheriff and she knows what we do. If Sam's using that alias, it's no coincidence. He's got a card in his wallet for if he gets into trouble. Basically says she's his cousin, and his ICE. Which means he knows there's a possibility something could happen to him out there, and they'd need to contact her." Dean started toward the door.

"What're you gonna do?" Abby asked.

"Gonna call Mills," he told her. "See if she can drive down there and check on him. She's a helluva lot closer. It'll take me a day to get there myself. I'm gonna head to my place, grab some stuff, and then head out to Bootbock."

"Not alone you're not," Gibbs said as he walked up to him by the door.

"I road trip alone all the time, Gibbs. I'll be fine."

"I don't care what you do all the time. You're not going without someone on your six."

"What do you want me to do? I'm fresh outta traveling companions at the moment."

"Take Tony with you," he told him. "He'll be no good to me here if you're out there by yourself anyway. Kid worries."

"I can't ask that of you guys," Dean said, shaking his head.

"I'm asking it," Gibbs said. "I'm demanding it, actually. You take Tony with you. You trade off driving. You get there faster."

Dean looked stubbornly at him for a few long moments, until he realized that it was probably a good idea...

*~.~*

Sheriff Jody Mills pulled up to the ratty motel, in front of the door where she'd been told Sam was staying. It was late. She'd left Sioux Falls just an hour after Dean had called. There was no one outside the motel, but it was lit up fairly well. When she exited the car and approached the door, she saw a hand-print of blood on the trim right next to the doorknob.

"Shit," she whispered under her breath, and pulled her gun before forcing her way inside. The first thing she noticed was the needles. There were maybe ten empty syringes on the side table, one in the bed. "Sam?" she called out. There was water running in the bathroom. "Sam, it's Jody. Is that you?"

She heard a grunt, and oddly enough she recognized it as Sam's. Cautiously she approached the bathroom.

"Jody?" Sam's voice cracked.

When she realized he was alone, she holstered her weapon. But she stood there in shock for a moment. Sam was seated on the closed toilet, sewing up a bloody gash in his side. His bloody shirts were thrown on the floor beside him. He looked horrid; his face drawn and pale, eyes sunken and exhausted. Bruises were forming all over his exposed skin.

"Christ, what happened to you?" she asked as she moved forward.

"I got...jumped," he told her weakly. "Guy pulled a...knife."

"Is...is that a stab wound? Were you stabbed?" her eyes widened with her words.

"That's what he was trying for," Sam said with a slight laugh. "Just...just a flesh wound. No...no big deal."

Jody's brows were furrowed as she appraised him. With a shake of her head, she stooped down in front of him and took the needle and floss from Sam's shaky hands. "It's totally a big deal, you idiot," she scolded. "You took off, left Dean freaking out that something horrible happened to you."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, sure you are," she scoffed as she sewed. "You're bloody and bruised after being jumped. Hell how did you even get jumped? I thought you knew how to fight."

"I uh..."

Her eye caught an unnatural protrusion in his chest, and she pressed a hand to it. Sam nearly fell off of the lid with a yelp. "Yeah. You've got broken ribs, and god knows what else. And what the fuck did I just see out there in the room?" she asked. "Are you shooting up now? I thought your brother taught you better than that."

"It's not..." Sam's eyes began to tear up. "It's not what you think..."

"Then tell me, Sam. What is it, B12? You come here to cleanse and get healthy?"

"I just...I needed to sleep and nothing was working."

"Doesn't look like that helped either," she said, yanking unnecessarily hard on the last stitch. He hissed in a breath.

"It...doesn't. I mean...Nothing does. But it...I get a few minutes. It lets me sleep a few minutes, and that's better than anything else I've tried. Nothing...nothing works. Nothing I try...nothing I do. I don't wanna do this, but I have no choice..."

"You need help, Sam," she told him more gently. "You can't keep doing this to yourself," she said as she grabbed his arm and turned it, showing him the track marks. "You're gonna kill yourself this way."

Sam's tears started falling. "I don't...know what to do," he told her. "I don't know what to do..."


	5. Hope Lost, and Found

"What's that say?" Dean asked as he passed his phone to Tony in the passenger seat, not wanting to read the text message while driving.

Tony took the phone. "Says... 'found Sam. He's alive. Don't panic. Taking him to Memorial hospital on Industry Drive," he read, then looked to Dean.

"Hospital?" Dean glanced to Tony. "Sam wouldn't voluntarily go to a hospital. What happened?"

"That's all it says," Tony replied with a shrug.

"So text her back and ask her where he's hurt," he said worriedly.

"Okay," Tony looked down at the phone and starting typing. 'This is Tony.' He hoped he wouldn't need to explain further. 'Dean wants to know where Sam is hurt.'

'Mustang66 Tony?'

Tony smirked at that. 'Yeah, that's me. Driving up with Dean. Make sure he doesn't run himself off the road or something.'

'Good. Means I can say what's going on. Sam got jumped. Avoided getting stabbed but was still cut bad enough to need stitches. There's something else, but I'd rather wait till you get here before I say.'

'As long he's not dying, I think Dean can manage getting us there in one piece. Did he say why he took off without saying anything to him?'

'Not really. I figure Dean can ask when he gets here. Just tell him to go easy on him. He's...not well.'

'I thought you said he was okay?'

'His head is not well. Dean will know what that means, probably.'

"What's she sayin'?" Dean asked impatiently.

"She says uh...Sam got jumped, but he's gonna be okay."

"Jumped?" Dean asked incredulously. "Sam got jumped? By humans?"

"She didn't say otherwise."

"The hell is going on with him," he said mostly to himself. "So he's okay though?"

"Well he's not dying or anything. Said she'd fill us in when we get there."

If that didn't sound ominous, Dean didn't know what would.

*~.~*

It wasn't until later the following day that they arrived at the hospital. Jody was pulling into the parking lot at the same time they were, having spent the night in a hotel across the street. Tony had driven the last eight hours, Dean getting some much needed sleep whether he thought he'd be able to or not.

Jody met them at the car. Dean met her for a hug. "Thank you so much for doing this," he said.

"I had some vacation time saved up," she said. "But seriously, you know you can count on me."

"Yeah I do," he said as he pulled away. "Uh, this is Tony," he introduced. "Tony, this is Jody Mills."

"NCIS right?" she asked as she shook his hand.

"That's right. Heard we're among the few law enforcement that the Winchesters can trust," he commented.

"We're the lucky ones," she said with a small smile. "It's nice to meet you, Tony. You and your team...well, I'm grateful the boys have had you." She turned to Dean. "Before you go in there, I need to talk to you," she told him.

"Yeah, you mean fill me in, I imagine," Dean replied. "So what is it? Why is he still here? He get that banged up in the fight?"

"No he's... It's not the physical injury that they're keeping him for," she told him. "Dean, he hasn't been able to sleep."

"Yeah I know about that."

"Did you know how long it'd been?" she asked. "How desperate he was to find a way?"

Dean's eyes narrowed. "What're you tellin' me?"

*~.~*

Dean entered Sam's room in the psychiatric ward. His younger brother was lying in bed on his side, curled up, but still awake. He didn't seem to notice Dean's presence.

"Drugs, Sam?" he asked as he approached the bed. Sam startled, scrambled to back up against the wall.

"Dean..." his voice cracked as he spoke.

Dean noticed that his eyes were red, face ashen and sunken in. He looked sickly. "What were you thinking?"

"It's not what you think." For being six-foot-four, Sam looked very small in that moment, curled up into himself defensively.

"You wanted to sleep," Dean replied.

Sam swallowed, eyes darting around for a moment in the air.

"Guess big brother knows," Lucifer said with a smirk where he stood in the corner making a cat's cradle with string. Sam ignored him the best he could.

"I...guess they told you," Sam said.

"Sam, what were you thinkin', huh?" he repeated in a more defeated tone as he sat down on the side of the bed. "Heroin? You coulda died..."

"I know," Sam said, voice cracking again. "But it...it's the only thing that let me sleep. Even if it was only a little while."

"Why did you come all the way here to do that?" Dean asked, his head shaking in confusion. "If you were gonna do something like that, you should've at least had me around to watch your back."

"I didn't come here to do that, Dean," he defended. "I..." He looked down, embarrassed. "I came here because...I thought if I prayed hard enough...maybe Cas would hear and he'd... I don't know," he ended, curling impossibly tighter into himself.

Sam's confession made Dean's heart sink a little in his chest. "Sammy," Dean said, turning to face him fully. "I'll find something, okay?"

"I don't think there is anything," Sam replied.

"There's always something," Dean said with a small smile. "And I'll find it."

"Not this time, Dean," Sam said with a shake of his head. His eyes looked worn as they bore into Dean's. "When I was back at the apartment, I tried everything I could get my hands on as far as sleep aids. Nothing helped. Not at all. And I guess I just got to the point where...I was so delirious," he said with a laugh that didn't quite reach his eyes, "That I actually thought...maybe Cas would hear me if I came to the last place we saw him. Maybe if I prayed hard enough, because that's the only thing that could fix this. But he's gone. And...I got desperate. Someone offered me something, and I couldn't pass up the chance. It gave me a few minutes here and there, like a tease, not really helping, but so much more than the nothing I had without it. I kept going back for more.

"And now? I'm not even going through withdrawals, Dean. And they've got me on the highest doses of the most serious stuff you can get here; like...stuff you'd give someone going in for surgery, and it's not touching me, Dean," his voice cracked again. "It's not doing anything at all. At it's because it's not the sleep. It's Lucifer. I can't make him go away, and he won't let me..."

"Sam, I'm gonna figure it out, okay?" Dean told him, and Sam realized he was a bit closer now. "Doesn't matter what I gotta do."

"Dean..."

"I'll figure it out. Just trust me, okay?"

Sam looked at him as if he was grateful, yet resigned to his fate anyway. Dean could see it in his eyes.

"Aww you guys are having a moment!" Lucifer said.

Dean saw him look over at the corner, and he grabbed Sam's chin to make him look back at him. "Hey, look at me. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna fix this."

"You can't fix everything," Sam told him sadly.

"Maybe not, but I can sure as hell try."

"No deals, Dean. You won't find a crossroads demon that'll work with you, but even if you did, I won't let you."

"Yeah I know," Dean agreed. "And if I try and ask Death for anything again, I'm pretty sure I'm roadkill." Sam looked down again. "Let's get you outta here," he said as he stood.

"No," Sam looked back up at him. There was no anger in his voice, but there was also no movement to leave. "You should leave me here."

"What're you talking about?" Dean narrowed his eyes. "I drove eighteen hours to come and get you, man."

"It's better if I'm here, Dean. It's the safest thing... For myself and for all of you."

"I can keep you safe."

"But you shouldn't have to," he replied. "I'll be okay here. It's best if you just...if you go on without me."

"Sam-"

"They're gonna try me on some anti-psychotics," he continued. "And who know; maybe they'll help."

"You think that of all the crap they've been giving you, it's not doing a damn thing for you, and some other medication could magically help?"

"It's worth a shot," Sam replied weakly, like he didn't even believe it himself.

Dean stood there for a long moment as he looked him over. Saw the twitches and the ticks of facial muscles, the tensing up that indicated the hallucinations getting to him. But more than anything, he could see the defeat.

"You're giving up," Dean said finally.

Sam looked at him again. "I've tried, Dean... I've tried for so long."

"And now you're just giving in?"

"I'm tired... I'm so tired, Dean. I just...I don't care anymore."

Dean looked at him a bit longer, trying to decide whether or not attempting to tell Sam that he was an idiot would actually get through to him. "Well I'm not giving up," he told him, then turned and walked out.

*~.~*

"What's going on?" Tony asked as he hurried after Dean who had come storming up the hall and out toward the parking lot without saying a word. "Is Sam okay? What happened?"

"I need to go for a drive," Dean said flatly.

"We just got through with a whole lot of that!" Tony said with a slightly hysterical laugh, still following him toward the car. "Jody's getting us a room across the street. Why don't we just rest up a bit and then-"

"I need to go for a drive, Tony," Dean said more sternly. "I can't sit around right now. Too much on my mind. You wanna go crash, go on ahead and I'll be there later."

"I'm not letting you go off on your own in that frame of mind," Tony stated.

"Then get the hell in the car," Dean nearly growled as he opened the driver side door.

He wasn't sure where he was going, really. Just forward. Fast. He tried to push away the part of this that really bothered him-the part where Sam had thrown in the towel-so that he could focus on figuring out what to do to help him.

Thankfully Tony was silent in the passenger seat. Right up until he was shouting for him to stop. It was the same moment he'd seen the reason why; a man in the road, dirty and bloody and...

Dean slammed on the brakes and brought the car to a screeching halt. Once he had the car in park, he opened his door and pushed out of his seat to look at the man lit up in the headlights.

His breath caught in his throat for a moment. He was frozen, as was Tony still in the car.

"Cas..."


	6. Shifting

Castiel was unconscious by the time the two men were at his side.

"What happened to him?" Tony asked as they looked him over.

"I don't know," Dean replied, appraising the angel where he lay. He noticed the clothes he was wearing, as if for the first time. They were like Sam's, except a different color; a baby-blue instead of the cream colored scrub-like dressing Sam was in.

"Dean, look," Tony said as he lifted Castiel's arm and indicated to the medical bracelet on his wrist.

"He's... He was staying at the same place as Sam?"

"Blue scrubs means he was on the first floor," Tony told him. "Voluntary, non-violent psych patients. He must've wandered out of there."

"Or was taken out. Look at him. Looks like someone beat the hell outta him."

"We need to talk to the staff," Tony said, eyes shifting in front of him for a moment. "Let's get him to the car and I'll make a call..."

*~.~*

By the time they made it back to their motel room across from the hospital, Cas was awake and alert, but seemed confused. But both of the other men noticed that whatever wounds, scrapes and bruises the angel had had when they found him were now gone.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked anyway. Cas looked at him long and hard, eyes narrowing in silent thought.

Tony came in, ending a call on his cell. "They said he checked himself out today," Tony told him. "He told them he didn't feel he needed to be there."

"And what, they just let him walk away in scrubs?" Dean scoffed.

"You..." Cas said quietly, and Dean looked back at him. "You're the one in my head."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"Sometimes...I see things from my life before. I don't remember anything before I arrived at that hospital, but I see...flashes of things that don't seem like they could be real. But you...I remember you. You call me Cas. Is that my name? Do you know me?"

Dean's eyes were wide now, not knowing how to respond to the fact that the angel had no memory. But after a moment he replied, "Yeah. Yeah you're name's Cas, and yes I know you."

"You're Dean," Castiel stated, almost as a question.

"That's right," Dean nodded. "Cas...how are you here?" he asked as he sat down beside him on the end of one of the beds.

"I believe you drove me," he replied. "I checked myself out of the hospital because I didn't think I was making much progress."

"Before that," Dean said. "Before the hospital..."

"All I remember is waking up in a strange building. I was...a mess. My clothes were...well I suppose they were like they are now. But more...more like I had been wearing them for ages. I walked to a hospital, or rather happened upon it as I was walking. They assumed I was a homeless man. When I told them I couldn't remember who I was, they sent me to the one across the street from here," he told them. "These people...they told me I'm not a danger to myself and that I could leave if I wanted to. But...I have nowhere to go. And the things I see in my head...they are...disturbing. I want to remember, Dean. I want to know if they're real."

"So you left to do what, exactly?" Dean asked.

"I am uncertain," he replied, looking down at his lap. "I thought perhaps if I could find the place where I woke up, I might be able to find some clue. But then I was struck by a vehicle."

"You were hit by a car?" Dean shouted, surprised at the announcement.

Cas looked up at him, bewildered by the man's concern. "I seem to be fine now," he replied. I was in pain before you found me. Now I'm...somehow better. Though I am...quite disgusting at the moment," he said as he looked down at himself.

Dean swallowed and looked away for a moment. "Yeah uh...well, you can take a shower here," he told him. "And you can stay with us, or you can go back across the street until we figure out what's going on."

"I believe that may be best," Cas replied. "Perhaps now that I know you are real, my memory may begin to return to me. Seeing as my...recent trial at independence seems to have failed miserably, staying at the hospital would be a wise choice for the time being."

Dean nodded, unsure exactly how to feel about any of it. But Cas was back, and it was a step in the direction of hope. There was no way to know, however, if the angel still had all of his abilities. Until the angel could remember who and what he was, Dean would have to simply have faith and hope...

*~.~*

Dean escorted the angel across the street, showered and dressed in some of Dean's clothes; an old pair of jeans and an AC/DC tee shirt that fit Cas surprisingly well. Still, it looked out of place on the angel. He looked like...any ordinary person, and it was weird, but Dean would take it because Cas was back, and that's what mattered.

"I would like to check myself back in," Castiel told the nurse at the front desk. "I had an...episode, and this nice man was kind enough to drive me here."

Dean stayed as Cas was checked in, and waited for him to come out into the common area dressed in the same kind of scrubs he'd seen him in before. Cas walked over to him, sitting down beside the hunter on the couch.

"I need to ask you something," Dean told him. "Do you remember Sam?" he asked as he turned to look at him.

Castiel's eyes narrowed for a moment. "Fleetingly. I remember a face that goes to that name, but not much else. Why?"

"Because he's hurt," Dean told him. "He's real bad off and I don't think I can help him. Not without you, anyway."

"What do you mean?" he asked, cocking his head slightly.

"When you remember...and I really hope you do...you'll know what I mean. You're...special, Cas. You can help him."

Cas looked down for a moment, pondering what was just said to him. Then he looked back up at Dean. "How did he get hurt?" he asked.

Dean's features wavered for a moment. "You'll remember that, too, I'm sure." Cas nodded in acceptance. "Here," Dean said as he pulled out his wallet to retrieve a card. "My number is on this. I'm not goin' anywhere just yet. I mean...I'm staying in town for a while. So if you need me...if you remember anything or whatever, you can call me. Doesn't matter what time it is."

Cas took the card and looked down at it. "You're with the FBI?" he questioned after reading the card.

Dean smirked. "Not exactly. But that's my number."

*~.~*

Cas called at midnight.

Dean didn't even bother getting in the car. He just ran across the street. There were bodies on the ground at the entrance. His heart began to race.

When he burst through the door, there were more bodies. Cas stood there in the middle of the floor looking unreadable.

"Cas, what the hell happened?"

His eyes tracked up to meet Dean's. "They were coming for Sam," he said. "I remember everything, now," he told him. "They were demons. I could see their true faces. They came to kill him, but I stopped them."

"You remember everything?" Dean asked as he approached him, eyes wide.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm so sorry for everything." His eyes showed his sincerity and regret.

"Where's Sam?"

"They brought him to the electroshock therapy room, I believe is what the door said. They were abusing the use of this machine. I healed the damage it did, but I was...unable to repair the wall," he reported and looked down sadly. "I brought him to my room here."

"What do you mean you can't repair it?" Dean asked, face falling with the return of hopelessness as Cas began to lead him back toward the room.

"The wall has...disintegrated. There are no pieces to put back together again." When they arrived in Cas's room, they saw Sam in the corner, curled in on himself and shaking, flinching from things only he could hear and see. "This is my fault, I know," Castiel said, his brows furrowed. "And now there's no way to fix him."

Dean leaned back against the wall, a thousand thoughts running through his head. Among them, Sam is gonna suffer the rest of his life. Can I take care of him? Will I be enough? Do I leave him here?

"I can't fix it," Castiel said again, this time in a different tone that pulled Dean from his thoughts, and he looked over at him. "But perhaps I can shift it..."

"What?" Dean was confused as the angel walked over to Sam.

Cas knelt down in front of Sam, who was startled by his presence; frightened even. "Forgive me," Cas said, then reach his hand up to touch Sam's forehead.

"No...no stay away from me..." Sam whimpered weakly in protest, not seeing Cas, but Lucifer instead. But there was no fight left in him. Castiel's hand clamped over Sam's head, and suddenly there was a red glow beneath Cas's hand where it met Sam's skin, and Sam was tensing, arching under the angel's touch. The glow spread out and traveled like lines of liquid lightning up Castiel's arms until it reached his head, his eyes glowing for the briefest moment before it was finished.

Then Sam was drawing his a huge breath, scrambling back against the wall as Cas's hand dropped away. His eyes came into focus on the angel. "Cas?" he questioned, eyes wide in realization.

"Sammy?" Dean stepped forward, heart pounding in his chest.

And suddenly Castiel was scrambling away from both of them, frightened by something no one else could see...

*~.~*

Jody got Cas transferred to a home in Sioux Falls so that she could check in on him regularly for the Winchester brothers. That and...well the current facility seemed to have been marked. Demons could return to try and finish the job.

They'd both felt guilty for leaving him at all, but whatever he'd done to sacrifice himself for Sam, Dean was grateful. Sam felt torn between guilt and relief, even though his wall crashing was Castiel's fault in the first place. Whatever it was that he was feeling, though, was on the side burner. He slept the entire drive back to D.C. Dean took the opportunity to fill Tony in on the way.

Then Tony brought up a fairly decent point. "Why were the demons after Sam? I thought they thought that he was dead already; that all of you were."

Dean shook his head. "I don't know. Could've just been someone on staff was possessed. Saw him. Called for backup."

"Maybe they weren't there for Sam originally," Tony suggested.

Dean glanced at him for a moment. "What?"

"Maybe the one demon spotted Castiel," he continued. "And when they saw him check out, they went after him. Ran him down with their car and thought they'd left him for dead. They might not have known he still had his powers. I mean, you saw him. He looked like hell."

"And then suddenly Sam is checked in. Demon calls for help. They weren't expecting full-on Cas to show up again."

"It's good Sheriff Mills moved him outta there. You think he'll be okay?"

Dean didn't respond to that. He wasn't sure what would happen to the angel. He'd just gotten him back, and now he was good as gone again...


End file.
